Are London clubs falling behind in the Premier League?

There was a time even in the Premier League era where London clubs dominated the league and its cups, but in 2020 one can question with all validity if clubs from the capital are rapidly fallen behind their northern rivals?

Let’s start with Chelsea who are arguably the best club in London of the past few years. Here is a team that won several league titles from 2005 and a few doubles and also of course won the Champions League in 2012 and have been to 2 Champions Leagues finals. Let’s not forget they are also the holders of the Europa League.

But they lost Maurizio Sarri at the end of last season and replaced him with Frank Lampard, a manager with hardly any experience though Chelsea being 4th presently is some kind of miracle given that the club were banned from a summer transfer window last year.

Chelsea are 4th and are having a decent season, they are also into the knockout stages of the Champions League but they do not look that strong in actually winning trophies this season. They have lost too many games at home, which is alien for a team that once went 4 years without a defeat at Stamford Bridge.

Then there is the curious case of Arsenal, a really great historic side, a team that were wooing fans in Europe in the early 2000s, winning multiple trophies in England and even going a season unbeaten. Since the early part of the 2010s though the Gunners have been going backwards. By every passing season, they have been taking one step forward and two back and this season has really underlined that, and with a thick black marker pen. They are currently in 10th position, this is a staggering decline, and yes the league positions are very close still, two wins could change a lot to their standing, but even still what are they doing in 10th anyway?

This is a club who once kept the same manager for 22 years and yet have seen 3 different faces in the dug out this season alone in Unai Emery, Freddie Ljungberg and now Mikel Arteta. It is early days for Arteta so no judgement is meant to be passed but it is now 7 games in charge in the league with just 1 win. Underwhelming doesn’t come close, and Arsenal look a shadow of themselves.

Tottenham do not look like the team of the past two seasons and could fail to make the Champions League, this after reaching the final in 2019. Finally there is the case of another high profile London club in West Ham. A sacked manager and bringing back one in David Moyes who had already failed at the club the first time makes little sense. The Hammers have a fantastic 60,000 seater stadium and despite all of that they could be getting relegated, they are currently in the bottom three and have some very hard fixtures to come.

And the top two places in the league are being occupied by Liverpool and Manchester City two teams up north and just a few miles from one another, there has been a shift in the Premier League but it has also seen a rapid decline of the London based clubs.

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